Bright Future
by TheVampireMaharet
Summary: This is a response to the first ever Dead Zone Fanfiction challenge. A year after Johnny's coma, Sarah ponders her answer to Walt's question: Will you marry me?


Disclaimer:  I don't own The Dead Zone.  The characters and concepts all belong to the USA Network and Stephen King.

**A/N:  This is a response to the first Dead Zone Fanfiction Challenge.  Write a story from the point of view of someone besides Johnny using the words diamond ring, kazoo, a bouquet of flowers, a baby, a dog, and somebody with the hiccups.**

BRIGHT FUTURE 

**By InsaneGenius**

            Sarah sat in a booth at a local Italian restaurant waiting for the Sheriff, Walt Bannerman, to arrive.  She stared at the two objects lying within her reach: an old red kazoo and a diamond ring.  The kazoo was weather worn and had indeed seen better days, but it was the sentimentality of the object that kept it in her possession.  The kazoo had been given to her by her comatose fiancé, when they had both only been five years old.  Now, twenty-five years later, the man she had grown up, fallen in love, and wanted to grow old with was trapped inside his own mind in the corner of an old hospital.  The same man who had given her the kazoo.  The same man on whom her thoughts were dwelling now.

            She had kept everything Johnny had ever given to her all the way up from the kazoo to the ring he had given her on the night of his accident.  That night, everything had changed.  

            She had discovered that she was pregnant with his child a month into Johnny's coma.  That hurt her more than anything.  The fact that she would raise his son without him was almost unbearable.  Of course, he could possibly wake up, but the odds against that were astounding.  

            One year had gone by since then.  She had met someone else who could fill the whole in her heart.  Someone else who could raise little JJ with her, Walt Bannerman.  They happened upon each other at the hospital.  She was visiting Johnny, and he his grandmother.  She showed him hot to not get half and half in his tomato soup when using the hospital food machines, and ever since then he had helped her out a lot.  They began to date and eventually maintained a steady relationship with each other.  He didn't even raise a single objection when she decided to name her newly born son Johnny.  Just last night he had popped the big question on her.  The one she was afraid to answer.  Will you marry me?  This was the question she had been both longing and dreading to hear, and even with the amount of thought already put into the answer, she was till unprepared.  She had simply asked Walt to give her one-day to think about it.  So that day was drawing nigh, and she still didn't have a ready answer.  Walt was running behind schedule, but perhaps that was indeed a good thing.  It gave her more time to consider each of her possible answers: yes and no.  

            No would mean that she still clung on to the shadows of the past.  A past with the man who's future looked dim, but that didn't matter to her.  She was raised to always have hope in the things unseen.  She prayed for Johnny's well being every night in hopes that she would someday get a call from the hospital saying that he had awakened.  But maybe Johnny's not waking up was God's answer.  Maybe he wanted her to move on with her life.  This brought her to the next answer she could offer him:  yes.  Yes meant that she was done living the world of the past and was ready to embrace her future.  

She glanced down at the two objects in front of her, one representing the past and the other the future.  She saw the light reflect off of the shiny surface of the beautiful diamond ring Walt had given her.  The future looked bright.  It looked bright indeed next to the old, faded kazoo.  She looked up as the door to the restaurant opened.  Walt stood there scanning the crowd for her face, with a bouquet of red roses in one hand.  The red of her kazoo paled in comparison to the elegant flowers.  She pulled her purse out and placed it within.  She wasn't ready to entirely give up on the past.  Her past was a part of her no matter what she did, but she was ready to forge a new future with Walt.

She smiled at this last thought and mouthed a simple word that was full of meaning.

Walt finally spotted her and worked his way over to her table.  

"I'm sorry I'm late," he said nervously around a hiccup, "I must really be nervous right now.  I'm getting the hiccups.  He grinned at her hopefully after this last statement.

"Don't be," she said looking into his eyes as she slipped her future onto her finger, "I've made my decision Walt.  The answer is yes, it would be an honor to be your wife."

"Really?  Wow.  Well I guess it's time for me to pop the next question then," he said, visibly relaxing, "What do you think about dogs?"

THE END

**A/N:  Well what'd ya think?  Please R&R!  Tell me how I did!**


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